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The four leading independent clubs will battle it out for a winner's purse of HK$25,000 at the inaugural Quaid-I-Azam Twenty20 Trophy at Mission Road today.
After the preliminary pool games ended, both the established clubs - Hong Kong Cricket Club and Kowloon Cricket Club - were bundled out, leaving JKN Little Sai Wan, SCC Vagabonds, Pakistan Association and Millennium in the fray.
The semi-final lineup will read Millennium versus Vagabonds, and Pakistan Association  against Little Sai Wan. In addition to the winner's bonanza, the runners up will receive HK$10,000.
And already there is talk of the prize money being increased fourfold for next year with the winning team to get HK$100,000. Now that would even entice HKCC to make sure that their best players were available, which was sadly  not the case yesterday.
'We were missing quite a few players,' said Dougie Griffin after HKCC lost both their pool games,  going down by two wickets to Vagabonds and then crushed by nine wickets by an impressive Little Sai Wan outfit.
Apparently, the Wong Nei Chung Gap Road club would have fielded their strongest side today if they had made it to the semi-finals. Unluckily for them, their opponents were in no mood to grant them any favours.
But HKCC also self-destructed. Their batsmen were suicidal with six run-outs in the two innings - the two against Vagabonds involving their best batsmen Imran Idrees and Neil Jones, and four more against the top-class Sai Wan fielding unit.
'We were also guilty of not batting out our overs in the game against the Vags,'  said Idrees who top-scored with 36 as HKCC were bowled out for 106 in 17.1 overs.
Sai Wan captain Tabarak Dar was the star in his side's comprehensive win over HKCC. Having bowled them out for 111, Sai Wan were left chasing 118 in 19 overs after being penalised for a slow over rate. It was no problem as Dar (39), Zain Abbas (53 not out) and Irfan Ahmed (17 not out) made light work of the chase.
Dar then won his second man-of-the-match award - and is in line for the HK$5,000 award for the player-of-the-tournament - as Sai Wan defeated Vagabonds by 43 runs. Dar top-scored with 26 in a total of 112 and then grabbed four for 17 as Vagabonds folded tamely for 69.
'The side which plays smart cricket will win,' predicted Dar. 'It is not just about big-hitting, you need to bat through the 20 overs, and keep wickets in hand. Our guys are hungry to win and we are looking forward to the game against Pakistan Association, and then hopefully the final.'



Big guns fall flat as independents eye Twenty20 cash bonanza